WWE Tag Team Decent(ion): Is Two Really Better Than One?

We have all heard it. We are all talking about it and it seems that we will continue talking about it for a long time to come if something is not done to resolve the current problem. The tag-team division is made to look extremely poor in the WWE.

A case in point is the latest team of Cody Rhodes and Drew McIntyre. While the way in which they won the title was alarming to many, it is not the reason I decided to add my point of view to the already heated discussion.

Sure they won the titles very unconvincingly, but as a team, they showed some promise. They put on some entertaining matches and the narcissism displayed by the two put smiles on our faces.

It did not matter what we were smiling about, the point was that they were entertaining.

While we never expected it to last very long, given each man’s selfishness, we certainly never expected the titles to be dropped to the team of John Cena and David Otunga at Bragging Rights.

This very new team consisted of wrestlers who had not fought together before, did not even prepare for the title match and could not even co-operate with each other, which is the main ingredient of a strong tag-team. Yet they won the match, again unconvincingly.

However, the tag-team curse did not stop there. The title again changed hands 24 hours later, this time in the least convincing way possible (I would not go into the details since we know how it happened) to Justin Gabriel and Heath Slater.

If you thought that was all, you would be wrong, because immediately on Smackdown Rhodes and McIntyre seemed to be calling it quits after a match with Kofi Kingston and The Big Show.

This is indeed disheartening. Why can’t the team survive after the loss? Maybe long enough to even to try to get the titles back.

At least The Hart Dynasty tried to win back their titles, although they now seem to be suffering the same fate that is currently eating away at WWE, that is, the team without the belts have nothing to hold them together.

(Even Vance Archer and Curt Hawkins have gone their separate ways, and these two are quite entertaining to watch; no one can argue about that.)

The current trend takes all the credibility away from the title. There is no value attached to this belt since it seems that anyone can become the top contender and win it.

When it is won, it is not defended in a way you expect a champion to defend himself and his title. The title and those taking part in the matches look extremely weak and have lost all importance.

The answer may lie in the fact that the Tag Team Title has become a part of the larger storyline of the Nexus and John Cena. While it was not as explicit before, we now realise that it is being used to add fuel to the already existing fire of the main conflict.

Would the story line have been negatively affected if the tag team titles were left out of it? I really do not think so.

I really do not think Cena needs any more reason to hate the Nexus and all that they stand for. He has suffered a lot at the hands of the group so far.

Additionally, I do not believe that we need to be convinced by making other WWE titles part of the conflict that the Nexus are a dangerous unit. Notice that ‘titles’ is plural, the WWE Championship is also used to twist the Nexus tornado further, which has already been discussed by another author.

There is no reason why so many other smaller plots have to be included in this storyline. It is strong as it is.

We can only hope that there is some silver lining waiting for us. Maybe there is some great master plan that will come to fruition soon.

It seems that the Orton-Cena rivalry may be reborn or it could be that there is some other angle/s being worked in which need these variables to help it fall into place. I do not know what the plans are but we can always hope this slump is a means to some end.

In the meantime though, it does not look good. Perhaps the new title belts are the corporeal representation of the idea of the tag team division (all pun intended) in WWE: the two fighters are looking away from each other not because they have each other’s backs, but because they cannot stay together or see eye to eye.

Perhaps they are heading in different directions, trying to find a way out of the misery they have come to represent.